It Gets Hard Sometimes
by justdamagedgoods
Summary: They once again both knew his words were sugar coated lies, but in a friendship such as theirs, it was for the best on nights like these. Having a best friend in the form of a Time Lord doesn't always come easy. Peyton/Eleven friendship.


**This is my first attempt at ficing these two, and it's short and angsty and sweet, and I really like it.**

**It was inspired by my dear friend Jess's video that she made for me, beside you (doctor/peyton), which you can find here: youtube[dot]com/watch?v=Ygsxw385vEs so this is dedicated to her.**

**Feedback is really appreciated. **

It gets hard sometimes, coping with the fact that people always leave. People always leave her in the end, even those she wants to stay more than anything in the world. She should be used to it by now, having dealt with loss since she was eight years old, but it never gets any easier when the next person walks out of her life. She always ends up here, laying in bed and staying up against her will because the tears are keeping her awake. She always ends up like this—completely and utterly alone. Letting people in hasn't always been the easiest of things for her to do, but she does it anyways, because if she doesn't, people will start to whisper about her.

It's not often that she cares what people think of her, but in her short eighteen years of existence on the planet, she's had more rumors spread about her than she's willing to admit. She blames them all on herself, too. She used to be best friends with the gossip queen of the school. They were inseparable in childhood and middle school. But when high school hit, everything changed, and Brooke was out of her life in the blink of an eye. Boys had become the brunette's number one priority, and the battered and broken blonde was dwelling somewhere in the negative region of the list.

She wasn't popular at all. But she wasn't an outsider. She just roamed. Every day was an out of body experience. She was effectively a sleepwalker, aware of those around her but unaware of what was going on with herself. She'd fallen for two boys in her four years of high school, and one of them had even fallen for her back. They had been happy, blissfully so. She'd been such a good mother to his little girl. But fate could never let her be happy for long. Jake was out of her life in the blink of an eye and Lucas waltzed back in.

Her relationship with Lucas was disastrous from the start. She and Brooke had both fallen for him, and Peyton had bit her tongue, letting Brooke get whatever she wanted as always even though she knew the two were more than wrong for each other. But she let them try, and she was glad she'd done so, because in the time they had tried it out, Lucas had realized he'd wanted Peyton more. But that hadn't turned out well in the end. The intrigue of the forbidden fruit—the girlfriend's ex best friend—was lost once they could actually be together.

So now it was just her again. Graduation had come and gone and she'd turned down the intern opportunity she had gotten in Los Angeles because her dad was finally coming back home and she'd missed him too much to run off again. At least that was what she had told the record company. Her dad was still out at sea and would be for the next six months. She figured if she had been lying to herself all along, it wouldn't be any different if she let the lies go a little bit further.

She was getting used to being alone, but it didn't mean that she liked it at all. Deep down, she wasn't alone, however, but no one would ever believe her if she told them the truth. People already thought she was a backstabber and a liar, so this would've just made them think they were right about her all along.

Peyton _did_ have someone. She didn't have him often, but when he was around, she felt like her life had meaning. She never knew when he was going to drop by, and when he did, it wasn't for very long. But his visits meant the world to her and she didn't know if he would ever know.

She stirred from her thoughts a little bit and sat up more on her bed when hearing the soft humming outside of her bedroom window. Soon afterwards, she distinguished the familiar soft creaking sound of the front door of the Sawyer home. Her lower lip caught between her teeth expectantly, but she didn't dare to chance a glance in the direction of her door. If she watched, and nothing came, she'd never forgive herself for becoming so deluded with an empty hopefulness.

"Do you want me to come back another time?"

The familiar voice penetrated the silence of the wide room and while a smile threatened to tug at her lips, all that appeared was a look of confusion in her eyes and a deep frown on her lips as she turned to look over at the man she knew so little and yet so much about. "Why would I want that?" she asked in a whisper, her voice hoarse and the hurt she felt as clear as day.

"Well, you seem rather…busy," the wiry man responded, gesturing subtly to the tissues that surrounded the petite blonde's form on the bed and also to the fact that she was wearing nothing but a baggy sweatshirt and old shorts. He hadn't known her long, but he knew her well enough to know what these signs meant. "Thinking about someone?" he asked tentatively as he pushed off the doorjamb and wandered further into her bedroom, hands sliding easily into the pockets of his dress pants.

"No one but you," Peyton lied easily, the smile she'd been suppressing now forming. It didn't touch her eyes, however; an underlying hint of sadness still remained.

"I'm the cause of all of this?" he asked softly, sullenly. The hurt he felt in his hearts was painted on his features as he looked at her, hoping she would tell him that she had just been kidding. If he was to blame for her pain, he was getting too close. But in getting too close, he knew he wouldn't be able to just pull away. Peyton was different than all of the others.

"No! God, no. That's just my way of…decompressing, I guess. I don't know if that's the right word. But don't worry. You're most definitely not the cause of this," the blonde assured him, shaking her head slightly as she spoke. "Well, not all of it, at least. Maybe a little bit of it. I miss you when you're not around." Her gaze became downcast once she'd noticed the guilt softening his green eyes.

"I wish I could come around more, but you know how it is…" the brunette man told her sadly, sitting on the edge of her bed once she'd removed the tissues that sat there.

"I know. I know. I can't be selfish. I should treasure the moments I have with you. Not everyone has their own personal Time Lord," Peyton smiled good naturedly, brushing some of her damp hair back out of her eyes. Showering was another part of her decompressing process, and shortly before getting lost in her own misery, she had taken one.

His lips curved upwards into that goofy grin she brought out in him before pursing tightly a few moments later. "Well…you could come with me, you know," he offered, hoping he wouldn't be expecting too much of her or pushing her beyond her comfort zone with his offer.

"You and I both know that I couldn't, Doctor," she sighed sadly, moving to lie down on her back. "No matter how much I would love to…"

"I was afraid you would say that," he sighed, shifting to lie beside her. His gaze flickered up to the ceiling, eying the cracks in the paint disdainfully. She didn't deserve this life—a life of so much pain, so much sorrow. Peyton Sawyer was destined for so much more than that; he knew it for a fact as well. Unfortunately, he also knew that no matter how badly he wanted to help her along the way to achieving her true greatness, there was no way he could do it without hurting her more than ever in the end.

Shaking his head suddenly, he pulled a smile onto his features and turned so he was lying on his side, his bangs sweeping down across his eyes naturally. "We'll just have to make the best of the time we do have together then, won't we?" the Doctor grinned, trying his best to cheer her up. He always had a way of arriving on nights when she needed comfort the most, so in a familiar gesture, he opened his arms, knowing full well what she would do next.

"I like the way you think," she replied, this time her smiling reaching her eyes. She moved so she was lying snugly beside him, her head resting gently on his chest. The position was so familiar, so comforting, and yet everything about it was so different to her. Every move she made was an out of body experience to her, even when she felt like she knew herself the most.

"How long can you stay this time?" Peyton asked softly, warily, after a few minutes of just laying as they were.

"Not as long as you would like, but longer than you're expecting," the Doctor responded vaguely, choosing his words carefully. They both knew that by the time she woke up in the morning, or the afternoon rather, he would be gone and off on his next adventure. But those weren't the words she needed to hear right now, and he knew that.

"Really?" she asked with a soft yawn, now feeling the effect all of her shed tears had on her.

"Really. Now go to sleep, love," he murmured, leaning down to press a kiss to her forehead before affectionately stroking her curls in the way he knew would lull her off to sleep from experience. "Don't worry about people always leaving. I'm not going to leave you. I'll be right beside you."

They once again both knew his words were sugar coated lies, but in a friendship such as theirs, it was for the best on nights like these. Having a best friend in the form of a Time Lord doesn't always come easy.

It gets hard sometimes.


End file.
